I would like to discuss sections 4 and 5 of S. 2045, particularly concerning the availability of computer programs to accomplish the evaluation called for in section 5, to illustrate the state of the technology needed to accomplish section 5 by giving our experience. I am not in a position to discuss sections 6, 7, and 8 of this bill. Senator MORGAN. Mr. Bridges, if I may interrupt, would you please tell us what section 5 provides so we will know what we are talking about? Mr. BRIDGES. OK. I think, if I might, in general, I will tell you what I see the whole bill doing and I will talk about section 5. In general, this bill would establish a policy that would stimulate energy conservation in the private sector by requiring the Federal Government to provide leadership in developing and implementing conservation techniques in building construction and renovation. These techniques would be employed on Federal and federally assisted facilities. Agencies of the Federal Government would be required to prepare energy utilization and energy economic analyses for all new facilities 25,000 square feet or larger. The analyses would consider the major energy consuming systems including the heating, ventilating, lighting, and air-conditioning systems over the economic life of these buildings. The energy savings of such a policy is significant. The technology necessary to accomplish these savings is available. As a point of interest, four States-New York, Florida, North Carolina, and Washington-have adopted legislation covering State owned and leased buildings that require almost identical analyses to those contained in S. 2045. So, in effect, it is working in those States. Section 4 of this bill requires GSA and other agencies to publish energy conservation guidelines. We have a major area of concern contained in section 4(b)(5). This requires "the energy expended in the development processing, manufacture, and transportation of basic materials used in the construction, renovation, and maintenance of such buildings." Right at this present time, this is beyond the scope of present technology to estimate those costs. For that reason, we recommend that section be deleted. Senator MORGAN. I am not sure I follow you. Would you repeat that? Mr. BRIDGES. Section 4 of the bill, 4(b) (5) asks that information be supplied concerning energy expended in the development, like the development of a product; the processing of products in a manufacturing plant; the manufacturing, for example, like the welding energy; and the transportation of the basic materials. In other words, the aluminum to the plant, the steel to the plant, and then the product to the f.o.b. site. The costs, a way of calculating that is not presently available under present technology. What I want you to understand is what we can do presently and what we can't do presently. That aspect we can't do. Senator MORGAN. The bill requires that this information be furnished with regard to materials supplied for the use of a building that is being constructed? Mr. BRIDGES. Right. Senator MORGAN. In other words, if you are going to supply brick, you have got to find out what the energy expended was. In working on this bill, was this problem discussed, or do you know? Mr. BRIDGES. Yes. Senator MORGAN. You don't think it can be done? Mr. BRIDGES. At the present time we haven't got a procedure on how that can be done easily. It is very important that we try to calculate it because it is basically an energy utilization in building. I think we recognize that. The point I am making is the fact that the way to calculate that precisely is not available at the present time. Senator MORGAN. In your opinion, was this so that materials specified must use less energy in their construction? Mr. BRIDGES. Yes. Senator MORGAN. I can see the point of it, but also can see us getting into a maze nobody would ever be able to overcome. Excuse me, I didn't mean to interrupt. But we must try to understand as we go along. Mr. BRIDGES. Section 5 requires each Federal agency to prepare an energy utilization analysis and an energy economic analysis. The essential elements of these two things are, one, the evaluation of two or more energy system alternatives for the building; the simulation of each of these systems for a year's operating period; then the evaluation of the energy consumption of each of the components in each of these systems. Senator MORGAN. Let me get it straight again. Section 5 requires a utilization analysis and an economic analysis? Mr. BRIDGES. That is right, and an energy economic analysis. Mr. BRIDGES. The utilization analysis would tell you how much energy is going to be used in the building for a certain set of design parameters. This would give you the amount of energy that is going to be used in the building. The economic analysis would allow you to then determine what would be the cost of applying a certain set of design parameters to that building. The way this works is you would run several good designs alternatives for the building that would emplov different energy systems and they would be analyzed for the whole year operating period to find out how these different designs utilize energy. The energy economic analysis would then decide which of those are the best from the owner's economic standpoint. Senator MORGAN. What else does section 5 require? Mr. BRIDGES. That is the basis of section 5. Senator MORGAN. I believe this is the one you are going to direct most of your remarks to. Mr. BRIDGES. That is right. Senator MORGAN. When we recognize that we are going to get involved in all kinds of energy-use analyses, and when this is added to environmental impact studies and all the other things Government requires, are we ever going to get any more buildings built? Mr. BRIDGES. What I hope to show you today is the fact that energy utilization analysis is being used on a lot of buildings today, even Federal buildings. It is technology that is being emploved by the Federal agencies to do some of the things we were talking about. previously in reducing energy consumption in the buildings. It is a technique being used today. It is described within this bill. Senator MORGAN. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go ahead. Mr. BRIDGES. Section 5(b) (3) calls specifically for the energy economic analysis and that requires data from the energy utilization analysis; that is, how much energy is being used in making the energy economic study and section 5(b) (3) discusses the energy economic study. The energy economic analysis is more limited than the commonly referred to life-cycle costing because it includes only the energy-consuming or related items that affect the energy cost of the building. Senator MORGAN. What else would life-cycle costs include for the building? Mr. BRIDGES. The life of the carpeting, the life of the paint on the walls, the life of the fixture that holds the light bulb. The thing we are trying to address is just the energy consumption of the building, not in the broad scope of life-cycle costing. Senator MORGAN. I am not trying to make it complicated, but can the carpeting on the floors really have something to do with the energy economics, too? Mr. BRIDGES. Yes, sir, it can. You make a good point. The different things we use in the building are not necessarily the air-conditioning and heating systems; obviously, the outside wall, the glass, all have a function in the energy usage of the building. So you have to study all of those. Life-cycle costing causes difficulty when people try to calculate the cost of all the internal furnishings of a building which is not really directly related to the energy consumption of the building. The energy economic analysis addresses just the energy cost effect. For instance, this would allow the building owner to have all the economic information about the building from the energy cost, for example, not only the air conditioning system, but the maintenance of that system, the replacement of that system, all the economic data concerning that particular energy system; including, for instance, the study of whether or not energy cost is going to escalate in the future. Certainly, we know that energy is not going to remain at a stable rate of cost and you must inflate energy costs. In fact, you can inflate energy costs to the point that you can distort the real meaning of the study because the inflation factor becomes so important. However, it is just a small point. If, for instance, you just use energy at the present cost and you don't escalate it, by using this technique and this technology, you can save energy in buildings. The energy economic analysis is very comprehensive and provides a way an owner can get all the data he needs to make an economic decision. This type of analysis provides, I feel, a big step forward in design of buildings because it gives the owner all these costs. Section 5(c) requires that the system shall be selected considering the energy economics analysis essential to insure that the proper economic decisions are made while saving energy. Section 5(b) provides for the energy analysis and 5(c) says that the system shall be selected, considering this energy economic analysis. Senator MORGAN. It doesn't say that the system has to be selected that is the most economical, according to the analysis. It just has to be considered? Mr. BRIDGES. No, just considered. We feel a lot of judgments have to come in there by the design people, depending on how they use the building. We feel the application of present technology to accomplish the requirements of section 5 offers a good potential for energy savings in new and existing Federal buildings averaging at least 25 to 30 percent per building. The procedures involved are well established and now through the use of computers we have a practical means to employ it. The technology applied successfully requires these steps: First, the architect and engineer have to make a comparison of building designs; Second, they have to-well, in going into detail on that, for instance, they have to select different wall constructions, different type of glass construction, different mechanical systems, heating and airconditioning systems, and compare these. There is no clear set of parameters to design a building that will give you the lowest energy consumption. You can narrow those down, but there are always options that there is a question which is best. In the past the work was very difficult because of the extensive hand calculations to determine which option had the lowest energy. As a result, few buildings were analyzed in depth for energy consumption. It probably was based on the fact that there was a certain design time factor required, plus there was a deterrent because of the design fees. It just didn't allow enough money for the professionals to do the job that they had to with hand calculations. Particularly, Federal buildings fell prey to that where maximum design fees are established. To make a manual hand calculation of energy in a building requires, roughly, 16 million calculations. At 30 seconds a calculation that is more than 60 years of work. Senator MORGAN. Please repeat that. Mr. BRIDGES. To make an energy utilization analysis by hand calculation, say, using a slide rule, requires 16 million calculations; putting numbers into a formula, getting answers. At 30 seconds a calculation that is 60 years of work. Senator MORGAN. Before computers we just didn't much worry about it. Mr. BRIDGES. This illustrates why in-depth energy analyses have not been made in the past because of the extensive calculations required. The Trane Co., working with the computer, developed a program in 1973 called TRACE, which is available to architects and engineers and the Federal Government to perform this function. Other com The current cost for a computer analysis, to make this building utilization analysis, not including any consultants' fees, varies from about $500 to $2,000, depending on building size. To illustrate the potential energy savings, this could result by using the requirements in the technology of section 5 and I would like to cover three quick examples. The first consists of a survey of 26 buildings. These buildings were located throughout the United States, consisting of office buildings, schools, hospitals, a factory, a post office, a chapel, and a shopping center. The energy consumption varied from 302,000 Btu's per gross square foot per year in an office building in Hartford, Conn., to a low of 63,000 Btu's per gross square foot per year in an office building here. in Washington, D.C. In a sample of the 26 buildings there were two other office buildings located in Washington. One had 129,000 Btu's per gross square foot per year. The other had 116,000 Btu's per gross square foot per year. The statement we submitted contains the data in all 26 buildings. The average consumption, energy consumption in these 26 buildings is 133,000 Btu's per gross square foot per year. The average of the lowest 25 percent, take the lowest 25 percent, the average of that is 72,000 Btu's per gross square foot. If all 26 of those buildings could be reduced to the 72,000 or the average of the low 25 percent, it would achieve a 47-percent reduction in the energy in these buildings. GSA says that it should be possible to reduce existing buildings to 75,000 Btu's per gross square foot and new buildings to 55,000 Btu's per gross square foot. And GSA is demonstrating this capability in recent designs using the technology and the technical analysis made available in section 5. Particularly, for instance, I know of the Manchester, N.H., Federal Office Building that was designed and it has an energy consumption around 55,000 Btu's per square foot and, incidentally, TRACE was used in the energy utilization study for that particular project. The second example is a new 20-story, 300,000-square-foot office building that underwent an energy utilization analysis like that called out in section 5 (b) (2). The air-conditioning system was changed and actually, in this case, the air-conditioning system chosen, was actually less first cost than the original air-conditioning system that was the base design. The air conditioning equipment was changed. The amount of glass was reduced in the building. The type of glass was changed to a heatreflective type of glass. The lighting intensity was dropped. The amount of insulation was increased in the walls and the orientation of the whole building was changed to favor the direction of the sun. All of these changes were made that are consistent with good design practices as we know them today, that as GSA would be using in new buildings. The total energy cost reduction per year reduced from $122,000 per year down to slightly more than $50,000 per year. It is a 58.5 percent savings in energy costs. For that particular building, the computer energy utilization analysis cost $3,000 excluding consultant fees. |